Curtains
by Canadino
Summary: "You could stop climbing up walls to watch young boys sleep, or I could make an investment in better curtains." delinquent!Jack AU, Jack/Simon


**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

Curtains

Simon is shameless in sleep. It is a warm night and he wears some bloody, strappy thing and his neck's curve almost glows in the moonlight, beckoning like every single seductive slope on a body. His shoulders, skinny and exposed, whisper how pleasant it might be to have those arms around one's neck. Indeed, he is as slender as boys his age come; he is too young to truly have hips of his own, but time seems in favor of gracing him. They disappear underneath a thin sheet that slopes like so many elevations. A soft breath issues from his lips, his face framed with a mess of black hair that curls slightly at his ears.

Then his eyes open and he looks out the window, where Jack is watching him with unblinking eyes and a slightly agape mouth.

"You might want to pull the blankets up a bit," Jack says, after a moment and a gulp. "It gets a bit chilly these nights."

"_You_ might want to stop climbing up walls to watch young boys," Simon replies, shifting slightly to turn his body toward the window. "Or I might want to invest in some better curtains." The last point strikes Jack as a bit hypocritical; the curtains on the window are fine, but Simon has purposely left them up while he sleeps. It's an invitation waiting to happen. Of course, his room is also on the second floor of the house.

"It's not very easy getting up here, you know!" Jack retorts. He has to climb up the outer stone wall of the abode and from there, he has to scale the wall of the house up to Simon's window. "The bricks that jut out aren't very close together." If he hasn't had experience shimmying up flat surfaces, he might have not been able to cleanly use each slight protrusion to his advantage. He grips the windowsill to balance himself, one foot on a perfect brick ledge and one foot dangling in midair. Simon sits up and opens the window up a bit more.

"Do you want to come in?"

"No." Jack twists his mouth as Simon rests his arms on his side of the window. Separated by a thin screen, Jack looks in as Simon kneels on his bed to get up to eye contact. The boy is wearing shorts, as if some revealing shirt is not enough skin. Fourteen year olds were so liberal these days. "I just got off my shift and I wanted to see you."

Simon's eyes widen somewhat. Jack feels a moment of irritation; he isn't _that_ frigid. He wants to reach out to flatten some of the wild kinks in Simon's bed hair, but the screen is in the way. "I don't blame you," Simon says finally, leaning his head on his shoulder. "Hours of facing a kitchen might make me want to see you too."

Jack bites back a rude comment and forces composure. He is eighteen and the one who started this whole ordeal. He cannot show that he gets riled up for a child. "I can't tell when you're teasing me," he finally settles on. Simon giggles a little and shakes his head.

"I don't know how you fell for me when you know I'm like this," he says.

"I wonder that sometimes myself," Jack muses. He feels the exchange growing cute, because Simon is flushing lightly from the light from the streetlamps. The scenario is more romantic than his nature; his climbing up to talk to Simon from the window. He thinks Simon knows this too. A comfortable silence settles between them.

"Will you be at school tomorrow?"

"Probably not." Jack grips the sill and scratches his chin. He hasn't been at school for so long, he thinks he will be extremely rusty for learning and interactions with prejudiced classmates and unsympathetic professors. Seeing Simon at school is like taboo; he's gotten this far outside the halls of that institution and while he does not believe in superstition, a part of him wonders if everything will fall apart if he enters that world. Simon understands; he is different from other annoying children like that. "I should probably go." He's interrupted Simon's sleep this far, and if he remembers school well enough, it requires much energy.

"Wait." Jack stops from his descent. Simon's eyes radiate stoutness as Jack pulls himself up back to the window. "Kiss me first."

"Kiss you…?" It isn't that he hasn't kissed Simon before (in fact, it's a kiss that's landed him at this point!), but at this time, at this place! Simon stares at him resolutely through the screen and Jack relents. Something about being in the air frees him from prying eyes that will judge him for being so easy on another. He hasn't shown leniency for anyone in so long. He leans forward, pressing his face gently against the mesh screen and Simon kisses him, sliding his eyes closed.

The kiss is chaste (a screen doesn't quite allow for anything else), but Jack feels his poise slipping and when Simon breaks the kiss, he fumbles at the windowsill and accidentally slips on the footing. He falls and Simon winces when he hears the clatter of the rubbish bins that cushion Jack's fall.

The boy leans out as far as the screen will let him, the limited vision making it hard to find the ginger on the ground below him, but he trusts by the colorful language that is intertwined with the further movement of the bins that Jack is fine, and quickly shuts his window when he hears his parents turn on the light in their room. He pulls down the curtains and pretends to have been asleep this whole time.

No one needs to know he was waiting for Jack too.

End

[=]

Background info: Prior to this, Jack Merridew was a juvenile delinquent who wandered around the streets with his tiny gang causing general ruckus. During a getaway from a petty robbery, he runs into a boy wearing the uniform of the school he used to go to; from there, he attracts Simon's attention and constantly finds himself running into the boy during to-be crimes and finds himself always foiled in his attempts by the fourteen year old. Eventually, Simon charms him to drop his life of waywardness, but until he gets his life back together, the rest is history.

Note: A new AU I'm trying out. It's slightly different from the school!AU, but I feel like it's pretty clear it's my style…I want a distinction, but Jack/Simon just can't really be messed with. Good, bad? I want your opinion! Thanks for reading!


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